Issuing body: Resolution of the Plenum of the International Secretariat (of the International Communist League / Left Opposition)
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Bankruptcy of Reformism and Stalinism. For the Fourth International
1. The very holding of a conference of fourteen parties, organizations and groups of extremely heterogeneous character and tendencies is the result of a very profound crisis in the socialist and communist movement, more precisely the fruit of the collapse not only of the Second, but also, on another historical plane and for other reasons, of the Third International.
2. There can be no question, of course, of the new international being built by organizations starting from profoundly different and even opposed bases of principle. The Left Opposition took part in this conference under its own flag in order to help achieve a demarcation of principle from the reformists and centrists, and a rapprochement of the revolutionary, genuinely communist organizations.
3. The only real result — but on the other hand an extremely important one — of the conference is the declaration signed by four organizations: the Left Opposition, the German Socialist Workers' Party (SAP), and two Dutch parties, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Independent Socialist Party (OSP), representing the first deliberate step on the road to the construction of the new international on the basis of the principles of Marx and Lenin.
4. The Plenum is fully aware that these four organizations, of different political origins, cannot achieve complete unity in a few days on fundamental principles and on tactical and organizational methods. In any case, the result achieved has created sufficient grounds for expecting that the subsequent work of these organizations on the programmatic manifesto and the tactical documents will make it possible not only to secure the necessary unity of conceptions, but also to draw under the flag of the new international a series of other revolutionary organizations and fractions.
5. The Plenum considers it necessary to proceed immediately to the drafting of programmatic documents and to the establishment of a technical secretariat which could, even now, in the course of drawing up the manifesto and the resolutions, enter into contact with sympathizing organizations, so that their views, proposals and criticisms may find an echo in the texts of the programmatic documents.
6. The Plenum instructs its representative on the programme commission to hold firmly to the fundamental conceptions set out in the declaration of the Bolshevik-Leninists presented to the Paris Conference of 27 and 28 August 1933.
7. As regards the decisions taken by the heterogeneous majority of the conference, which are profoundly marked by the stamp of this heterogeneity, the Plenum of the Bolshevik-Leninists does not consider it possible to take upon itself political responsibility for these decisions. Insofar as the decisions taken might lead to this or that practical action (for example the boycott of Hitlerite Germany), the Left Opposition stands ready, depending on circumstances, to take part in those of these actions which correspond to its general positions of principle.
On the terrain of practical actions, the Left Opposition will constantly strive for a close rapprochement with the parties and organizations closest to it. Only on this condition will a broad and bold policy of the united front for current political tasks nourish the work of building the new communist international.
The Plenum calls on all sections of the International Left Opposition (OGI) to grasp clearly the historic importance of the step that has been taken.
8. In taking this position, the Plenum is merely making use of the right recognized by the conference itself, for all participating parties, to ratify or, on the contrary, to reject the decisions of the conference up to 15 October.
A task of the first urgency now is to give the "Declaration of the Four" the widest possible circulation in communist and socialist ranks, in the trade unions, and above all among the youth. Through newspapers, leaflets, posters, speeches and conversations, the meaning of the declaration must be popularized and explained. No effort must be spared in rousing the proletarian vanguard for the creation of the new international. The declaration of the Bolshevik-Leninists, presented to the conference, ends with these words: "Our revolutionary responsibility is immense. May our creative work rise to the level of that responsibility." It must be clearly understood that these words are addressed above all to the Bolshevik-Leninists themselves!
The Plenum of the International Secretariat, 31 August 1933, in La Vérité, no. 170, 22 September 1933.